The Transcontinental Railroad

Railroads had already transformed life in the East, but at the end of the Civil War railroad tracks still stopped at the Missouri River. For a quarter of a century, men had dreamed of building a line from coast to coast. Now they would attempt to lay 1,775 miles of track from Omaha to Sacramento.

The Transcontinental Railroad

A path would have to be cut through high mountains and vast deserts And cross treeless prairies where anxious and defiant Indians would resist their passage

The Transcontinental Railroad In 1862, two companies went to work Central Pacific was to push eastward from Sacramento, California over the Sierra Nevada mountains. Union Pacific was to start from Omaha Nebraska cross the great plains and cut through the Rockies.

The Transcontinental Railroad The two railroads were soon locked into a race More track = more money They were to meet somewhere in the west

The Transcontinental Railroad 1862 Congress loans $16,000 per mile of level track and $48,000 for every mile of mountain track Congress also promised each company 6,400 acres of federal land for every mile of track laid

The Transcontinental Railroad In 1865, the railroads found a solution to their work force problem. Besides hiring Irish immigrants who worked for low pay, the Central pacific Railroad employed over 10,000 Chinese immigrants.

The Transcontinental Railroad In 1866, the CPR had 44 blizzards while trying to tunnel through the Sierras. In 1869, the CPR laid 360 miles of track. On April 28, 1869, the CPR crew set a record of laying 10 miles in twelve hours.

The Transcontinental Railroad Finally, on May 10, 1869, The CPR and UPR met at Promontory Summit, Utah. The presidents of both railroads, Stanford and Durant, swung (and missed) at the last gold spike.

The Impact of the Railroads Before the railroads- each town kept it’s own time Railroad companies needed a more exact time Came up with four time zones Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific

The Impact of the Railroads In 1869, George Westinghouse helped make railway travel safer and faster with the invention of a new air brake On early trains, each railroad car had its own brakes and brake operator. If different cars stopped at different times, accidents resulted. The new air brake allowed an engineer to stop all the cars at once.

The Impact of the Railroads Railroad lines also added dining cars where porters, conductors and waiters attended the needs of passengers.

The Impact of the Railroads The railroads spurred economic growth. Steel-workers turned millions of tons of iron into steel for tracks and engines. Lumberjacks supplied wood for railroad ties. Miners dug coal to fuel the engines. The railroads opened every corner of the country to settlement and growth.